A report from Forum for the Future in the UK as produced a helpful guide to companies wishing to jump on the climate change bandwagon.
Their 8 recommendations are:
- Embrace a stretching boundary in terms of the emissions included (direct, indirect etc)
- Demonstrate a broad understanding of your entire carbon footprint prior to making any claim of neutrality.
- Exhibit caution in making blanket corporate-wide claims of neutrality
- Consider whether a claim of neutrality will resonate with your stakeholders - it's hard to stand over the idea of shipping bottled water worldwide, however you do it.
- Use the carbon management hierarchy of Avoid - Reduce - Replace - Offset, simply using offsetting without an ongoing reduction in base line emissions is not credible.
- Be completely transparent
- Exhibit and sustain broad leadership on climate change
- and most importantly, Tread neutrality as a long-term commitment and an on-going dynamic challenge.
Also lists some companies they feel are doing it right and some who may be following the letter but not the spirit going carbon neutral.
